This Yellow Taxi Cab In Which I Ride

I have still been unable to blog from my phone... I'm going to contact Sprint's customer disservice department later today, I think, and attempt complaining again. Currently, it's a little after noon, and I have only just woken up a little bit ago. I had some wicked strange dreams (I was a prosecutor on a cruise ship that sails black seas under blacker skies? I helped two girls that I liked back in middle school get out of some kind of trouble...). I am incredibly tired... my body is telling me that I worked too hard yesterday, playing at the Farmer's Market in Gloversville. I played for three hours straight! No breaks. There was a steady flow of people, so I didn't want to stop and miss my chance to sell a CD or pick up a tip. I had a great time playing and I did pick up quite a bit in tips. I also came home with a loaf of bread (which is delicious, by the way), that was given to me as a tip from the guy who makes his own bread. I had a couple of weird experiences ...

When I was 18 or so, I unofficially made a list of things I wanted to do before I die. I didn't write these things down (thus, the unofficialness) and, so, I have no record other than my vague memory of making the list to go on. I don't recall how many items there were on the list, but they ranged from really ridiculous things (like: learn to rollerblade backwards) to things that are really totally, super-ridiculous and probably wouldn't ever happen anyway (like: marry Winona Ryder). My 18 year old self was a much different person than my current self, but we share many similarities (like: ridiculous sense of humour and slight inability to take life too seriously). Yesterday, I accomplished one of the items on my list. In the late 90s (when I was 18 -- yes, you can do the math), I was a huge fan of the Wallflowers. 6th Avenue Heartache hit a note the first time I heard the intro. My dad gave me their CD (wait, I think it was a cassette first...), because he worked for ...

Sprint is being uncooperative and has decided to take away my picture mailing privileges, which means I can't blog from cell phone. I'm quite perturbed by this, especially since I am paying for unlimited picture mail capabilities. The issue is that, even though I am paying for unlimited picture mail, I am not paying for unlimited data usage. It doesn't make sense to me either. I plan on trying to work it out with their customer disservice department so that I can have my unlimited picture mail back without paying extra for it. In the mean time, I have to post pictures and blog the old fashion way. Lena's this past Thursday was a great night as usual. It was one of those summer days where you felt like you could stay up all night. Maybe that was because I had Friday off from work for the holiday. I played Passenger and God Says Nothing Back by the Wallflowers. I took a picture of the facade with the new guitar lights and tried to send it via picture mail to the blog. I...

A quick posting here with two videos at the bottom. They are two parts, and as a whole make up the final episode of Inside the Open Mic , my video series. It is a two parter because it features myself and I am long-winded and ramble. Toward the end, there is a song about peanut butter... If you've missed any episodes of the series, or want to go back and watch one you liked, there is a video player located at www.jamesfrederick.net/inside.shtml that contains all of the episodes. Or go to YouTube and type in "Inside the Open Mic" and you'll find them all. Enjoy!

Open mic was incredibly crowded this past Thursday. I got picked late in the drawing, but miraculously the first slot was still open. So, I played first -- well, first after the host Kate Blain played one of her own. I played Walking; Standing Still and Walls by Tom Petty. I love Walls . I wish I had learned it sooner. I received a good response from the huge crowd. The following day, I brought my guitar to a training for my job. It was the the third day of the training and I was beginning to build some rapport with the people that I sat near. During one break, I played a couple tunes, one of which was Passenger . After the song, one of the trainees said, "Do you mind if I make a comment on the song?" I said, "no" and she went on to say that I must have been really depressed when I wrote the song. I don't remember her exact words, but she talked about parts of the song and the feeling that she got from it. I was pretty excited that she totally "got" ...

Intermission. So, here are a few pics of David performing. Sounds great! Your missing an excellent show. Getting to hear some songs I've never heard him play, including the Tom Waits version of 'Down Town Train.' Pics From Caffe Lena 6/24

I'm writing from Caffe Lena. David Fey is playing the emerging artist series and I am here to listen. I'm mostly sitting alone, except that Rik Kent is sitting nearby with Laura his girlfriend. I was also introduced to some of David's family and had a nice conversation about live music with two live music lovers. Before coming here, I ate dinner (leftover Panera) at Uncommon Grounds and checked my facebook. Which, by the way, still drives me insane with its non-compatability... After dinner, I stopped at Borders and bought Pete Yorn's new CD. I also looked at every book in the fantasy section before buying Mostly Harmless, the last Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy book. And the show is starting, so... David Fey at Caffe Lena 6/24

It's the 21st and I haven't done a true blog since the 14th. In between I posted a couple pictures with words from my cell phone. A true entry, however, is now due. Even so, I don't really have a whole lot to post about. I covered open mic from the open mic. I didn't do anything Friday night because the friends I typically get together with on Friday both had lousy excuses, but excuses non-the-less ("It was a long day at work and I have a headache" and "there is chick involved"). Saturday was a family gathering on Stephanie's side. I became a jungle gym for a period of time as a nephew and second cousin of Stephanie's crawled all over me in acrobatic-like ways. I also watched a lot of Dora the Explorer and was referred to "anti-social" at one point for hanging out where there were cartoons instead of where there were people socializing. This morning I went out to eat with Stephanie, her brother and his family, and their parents for ...

I forgot/didn't-have-time to send this last night at open mic. I was very busy 'speed hosting' because the list of performers was so very long. The night ended at 11:30. There were some great songs, two excellent spoken-word artist, and Knuckles who plays song by cracking his knuckles. He did a sweet job on the Scooby-Doo theme song and received a worthy applause. Anyways, i had time to take a quick pic in the men's room near a quote from one of my songs. Lenas 6/18

Hi-O from open mic. Its a packed house here and a fairly long list. And a lot of first timers. Its been a good night with some sweet spoken word. I played 'rainy day' and 'whats up' by four non blonds. Tom pentkowski suggested I do the cover and I'm glad he did. It went over very well. Lenas 6/18

I just spent a good part of the day (let's say four hours is a good part of a day) figuring out how to send pictures and text to my blog from my phone. I want to start by making it clear that I'm not stupid. In fact, I consider myself to be above average when it comes to computer software intelligence. I can usually figure something out if it is giving me trouble. This time, however... It seems that the computer world was against me. I started out by setting up photomail blogging through blogger. It was quite a piece of cake and I sent my first blog from my phone earlier today. The problem was that blogger only lets you use one layout for the entry and that is photo first, text below. That's well and good most of the time. It's not well and good for my website feed, which reads the first part of my blog and magically makes it appear on the first page of my website. The problem was that it was showing the picture and screwing up the layout of my site. So, I began reading...

A test post from my phone... A picture of Bert. The fish that lives on my desk at work. Bert Originally uploaded by jamesfrederick2

I took a picture of the cake we ate to celebrate stephanie's mom's birthday. It is a panda and it has little red candies for eyes giving it a possessed, blood thirsty quality... Killer Panda Originally uploaded by jamesfrederick2

My knee is bright red. This is due to me wearing my favorite jeans (the ones with the rips and tears all over them, including the knee) to the park where the craft fair thing was taking place yesterday. I put sun tan lotion on before leaving the house and glanced down at my holy jeans. Then I put the sun tan lotion away, grabbed my guitar, and left for the park. I found a nice shady spot, tuned my guitar, and played. I played for about an hour and a half and made a few dollars in tips. I bought myself a hot dog for lunch and relaxed in the shade for a bit. Then I played for almost two more hours. I made enough money to buy dinner later that night. Which was kind of cool. I randomly decided to sign up for facebook about 10 minutes ago. I received an invite from a person I know and just started typing in my info. The page came up and boom, I have a facebook. I hate it. I want to burn it down or at least throw sharp things at it. I was putting in brief pieces of info about my songwriting ...

I'm at work. Not really, though. I am getting paid to hang around at home this weekend and have the phone near me. I'm on-call. I've had a few "calls" but I don't have to do anything about them except assess the severity of the situation, call my supervisor for her assessment of the severity of the situation, and maybe make a note or two. Then, if there are enough calls, I go out and do work. It's a great way to get paid. I'm currently watching The Who in concert on the High Def music channel. They are playing My Generation right now. I've got quite a bit to post this week. There are pictures and what-not. Firstly, however, I am incredibly excited about July 7th. The Wallflowers are touring and will playing in Clifton Park that night. It's a Tuesday, and Wednesday is a work day, and Clifton Park is rather a good distance to travel from Johnstown. I am trying to work things out with work so that I can have Wednesday off (at least the morning ...

A new song. A decision. And things I should be doing instead of blogging. Firstly, however, I saw Angels and Demons on Friday. It was quite an excellent movie. I was mostly on the edge of my seat (figuratively). After the movie, Stephanie filled in all of the gaps and explained that some of the events occured very differently in the book. I hadn't read the book. I should have. But, then the movie wouldn't have been as good. This way, I enjoyed the movie and am intrigued to read the book. Yes, I realize this is quite the opposite of what I typically preach as far as books and films made from books are concerned. I am in bed at 8 o'clock on Sunday, because it's too late to mow the lawn (not to mention, I am much too tired to engage in physically demanding activities, such as mowing the lawn). I could be playing my guitar and practicing (and possibly re-working) the new song that I'll write about in a moment, but I don't have the energy. I also don't have the ...

I haven't done a good blogging in a couple of weeks. I have been sick, you see, and so there hasn't been much music-making going on. Today, I went to a friend's house and tried out his drums (I suck -- although, I sucked a lot less after four songs than I did when I started) and played his guitar. We were having trouble getting anything going, but really had a rock-out moment with Lonely 'Ol Night by John Mellencamp. Playing a friend's instruments made me miss my own and so after coming home from the friend's house, I played my guitar for a little while. I actually started writing a song, until -- after singing and rhyming about the garage sale we had last weekend -- I realized that I didn't have anything to write about. So, I stopped playing. While at the friend's house I got to watch some of the video of me and my friend and another friend playing for the banquet/dinner thing that I was talking about a few posts back. We looked and sounded good. Howeve...

I still feel sick. Although, my sinuses are not as congested as they have been and I can actually talk. I just watched The Hunt for Gollum , a 40-minute fan film created by and for Lord of the Rings nuts like myself. It was good. It follows Aragorn as he searches for Gollum and it takes place in between The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings . It wasn't a great movie, by any means, but it was pretty cool. I think the most impressive thing about it, however, was how much the dude who played Aragorn looked like Viggo Mortensen (spelling?) -- the dude who played Aragorn in The Lord of the Rings . More about the film and the film itself can be found here at www.thehuntforgollum.com . After watching the film, I was directed by the internet to another video, which was advertised as a song by Gollum. I was intrigued and checked it out. It was this: Gollum's Song - I will follow you into Mount Doom Uploaded by Advent_Creative And I laughed very much out loud. ----- I have things I need to ...

Home. Ill. High on Sudafed, etc. Not swine flu (I hope). I woke up feeling kinda crappy, yesterday. By the time I got home from work, I was totally spent and laid on the couch until it was late enough to take NyQuil -- except that we didn't have NyQuil and I took Sudafed and Tylenol PM, which when put together almost equals NyQuil, instead. I woke up this morning feeling much, much worse than yesterday. Called in sick. Went back to sleep. It's noon now and I have been out of bed twice. Once to go to the bathroom, have a vitamin, and get more juice. The second time contained all of the same things that the first one did, except I also had some toast and decided to sit down at my laptop for a little bit. Right now, my head feels a little bit like a balloon. And I'm sort of worried that if I let go of it, it will float away and never be reunited with my body, which is too tired right now to chase after the floating head balloon. Being ill means I can't go to Lena's ton...

I always thought that tying a knot in a cherry stem using only your tongue was an incredibly difficult thing to do that only a select percentage of the human population was able to accomplish. As it turns out, mediocre songwriters -- like myself -- are also able to do this feat. I discovered that I can, in fact, tie a knot in cherry stem with my tongue this past Thursday at open mic. Here is how it happened: Willie the Moak's wife baked brownies and brought them to the open mic. Willie turned them into brownie sundaes (which were incredibly delicious, I must say) with cherry's on top. I ate my sundae (after I advertised it to the crowd -- I was hosting) and found myself with an empty bowl except for a lone cherry stem. I put it in my mouth. I don't know why it occurred to me at that particular time to try and tie it in a knot with my tongue. I guess when I saw the lonely, boringly-straight stem, my mind instantly thought "knot." Or, I simply remembered the feat of...